Brendon Hartley: “We Tried To Do Something Different To Move Up The Field, But It Didn’t Work Out.”

Brendon Hartley was disappointed to leave the Marina Bay Street Circuit without scoring any points as the New Zealender finished a lowly seventeenth at the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Red Bull Toro RossoHonda driver had qualified seventeenth on Saturday but fancied his chances at reaching a points paying position however, a strategic decision to pit early failed to pay off.

“We rolled the dice today and decided to pit early, I was quicker than the guys in front being on the Hypersoft. We changed to the Ultrasoft and a lot of people covered us which put us back in traffic, so it didn’t really work out.”

After failing to gain places in the first round of stops, Hartley pitted again but lost more positions.

“We decided to do another pit stop and I got stuck behind the Williams and lost a place to Magnussen, there was a couple of good scraps out there but we didn’t have the pace for points today.”

Overall it was a tough weekend for Hartley and Toro Rosso as they tried to do something different and failed to work out.

“It’s disappointing as we had high hopes for Singapore. It was a tough race, we got to the end but there’s no celebrations today. We chose to start on the Hypersoft because we knew we potentially had better tyre life than others around us, and we hoped we could make ground on the first lap.

“It was a bit tricky because Ocon went into the wall, but we were very competitive in the first stint on the Hypersoft. We tried to do something different to move up the field, but it didn’t work out.”